Panel assemblies for ceilings or walls are known which incorporate elongated panels which have their opposite longitudinal edges shaped to provide a tongue and groove arrangement, so that successive panels may be slip-fitted together with a tongue of one panel inserted in the cooperating complementary groove of an adjacent panel.
In many such panel assemblies, the panels are mounted upon an elongated supporting fixture which extends at an angle, usually transverse, to the length of the panels. Various attachment fixtures have been used for securing the panels to the underlying supports, and it is often necessary to have different fixtures depending upon the direction in which the panels are assembled. This required the stocking of a considerable number of different attachment fixtures for different applications and, frequently, mistakes could be made in selecting the wrong but quite similar attachment fixture for the particular application. Further, a considerable cost of the overall material is in the manufacture of these attachment fixtures themselves.